Let Her Paint : Ten Women Painters in Southampton City Art Gallery
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Note This version has been scanned in July 2013. The general layout has changed and the page numbers with it. There may be errors where the scanning has not picked up the text correctly. The front cover is in colour but all the other images were printed in black and white. As published, the booklet had an attractive squarish shape and each artist had a double-page spread with the image on the right. Foreword In determining the subject matter for this booklet, Gill Hedley reflected Southampton's, and her own, approach to the displays of the collection in the Gallery. Visitors are offered the opportunity to make comparisons and contrasts between objects rather than to receive a potted art history, school by school. By presenting the unexpected, one hopes to encourage some contemplation of the artists' ideas and intentions. It is part of a general attempt to make the collections accessible, which includes the provision of quizzes, information, talks, tours and participators activities. Elizabeth Goodall Assistant Curator Index ESSAY 2 ANGUISGIOLA Solonisba 5 ALLINGHAM Helen 7 HAYLLAR Mary 9 KARLOWSKA Stanislawa 11 JOHN Gwen 13 BELL Vanessa 15 GOSSE Laura Sylvia 17 HAMNETT Nina 19 AGAR Eileen 21 COLQUHOUN Ithell 23 1 LET HER PAINT ..... Ten Women Painters in Southampton City Art Gallery The title "Let her paint" is deliberately challenging. It is taken from one of Hamlet's speeches and refers not to oil paint but to makeup. It is used here partly to catch the eye and interest but also to emphasise the way in which, over the last four hundred years, women artists have been "allowed" to paint. For some women, this might have been in the shadow, studio or workshop of a husband, father or brother. Other women artists were encouraged only to acquire artistic skills in an entirely amateur fashion and only as a social accomplishment. In this way, it is not far removed from the ability to apply makeup skilfully. The ten women artists, chosen from many represented in the collection of Southampton City Art Gallery, illustrate different kinds of success and failure in the male art world. They have been selected partly because of the quality of their work and partly because they are able to stand as examples of certain types of "woman artist". The artists are discussed chronologically and it is interesting to note that the most successful of them, in career terms, is the earliest in date: Sofonisba Anguiscola. However, with the exception of Eileen Agar and Ithell Colquhoun (who first came to prominence in the 1930's) contemporary artists have not been included although Kim Lim, Gillian Ayres, Maggi Hambling, Kate Blacker and Lisa Milroy all have works in the gallery's collection. Although the fact of being women is inevitably important in their work, their biographical details are not vital to an understanding of it. The purpose of this catalogue is to summarise the lives often women painters and to compare their careers with those of their male contemporaries. We can only speculate, fruitlessly, whether any of the work in question would have been of another quality or content had social constraints been different. That is in part the answer to the tedious question "Why are there no great women artists?" The second part of the answer is: wait and see. This applies to artists of either sex. "Greatness" is a judgement passed on artists by time, with a little help from the art market. Today, there are many women artists with international reputations and the future will see the success of the best, regardless of gender. 2 Fashion also plays its part and women artists are now, per se. in vogue. This is due to many factors as well as simple merit. Woman are consumers of art and, in increasing numbers, they are art historians, curators, exhibition organisers and critics. Many are feminists and concerned to redress the imbalance in the history of art. The art market, too, is anxious to resurrect forgotten artists to encourage the burgeoning crowd of collectors. This is particularly true of Victorian women painters and their re-discovery must be welcomed. However, this strange conjunction of interests - dealers and feminists - should warn the wary. The new, feminist art history emphasises the vital role played in any era by social pressures and market forces. Thus, the wealth of source material available concerning nineteenth century manners, morals, marriage and the law allows the art historian to place the artist firmly in her Victorian context. Many previously disregarded artists are now, sometimes In virtue of their relationship with a male artist, being considered as significant regardless of merit. A gallery visitor or interested reader might be prompted to wonder if all women painters were good artists, whose talent was hidden through male conspiracy, and that merit is somehow conferred automatically by gender. The feminist art history considers questions of quality and hierarchy to be the irrelevant heritage of a competitive and exclusive male system. The gallery visitor with a casual interest in art does not always care for the minutiae of art history and although the new ideas are dynamic and crucial their passage from the text books to the public gallery will be slow. The question of quality is a vexed one and troubles many gallery visitors. The paintings that arc usually on display in a public art gallery such as Southampton's are perceived as being "good" art and setting some sort of standard. The displays are chosen by people who are influenced by their own training, by fashion and, of course, by what they like. They hope to communicate this balance between expertise and enthusiasm. Many of the paintings have been purchased after due research, consultation and deliberation but others may have been given, or bequeathed many years previously. Many paintings remain in store because they are no longer considered as important or because subsequent acquisitions have overtaken them. This has been the fate of many paintings by women artists all over the world and it is right that reputations have been rehabilitated and that curators have been obliged to search their stores. It must be remembered, though, that the male sex does not have the monopoly on mediocrity, either. In this catalogue there are artists whose work is on permanent or regular display in Southampton City Art Gallery. Others have been brought from the store and included to tell 3 part of the story of women's contribution to the story of art. Helen Allingham is a case in point: a Victorian water-colourist who specialised in variations of a theme made popular by a more successful male colleague. As Southampton has only a minor collection of Victorian watercolours it is much more important to see her work in the context of other women painters. Many women painters find that one of the stigmas they have to avoid today is the "special pleading" publication of which this is yet another example. Women artists enjoy international reputations today and the future will judge their work on merit alone. It is valuable to look back at the past to see the struggle that has created today's freedom. It is equally important to look at the paintings themselves and not just as illustrations to a text. The paintings, too, have merit beyond the confines of their authors' biographies but the entries that follow are designed to provide some insight into the lives and personalities of the artists. The paintings illustrated will not always be on display and those that are will be displayed with other paintings of the same date or subject. This guide may help to illumine these paintings whose significance might otherwise be overlooked and let them be seen in a new light. 4 SOFONISBA ANGUISCIOLA 1527?-1625 Portrait of the Artist's Sister in the Garb of a Nun Oil on canvas 685 x 533mms Purchased through the Chipperfield Bequest Fund. 1936 5 Sofonisba Anguisciola was the daughter of a nobleman in Cremona, Northern Italy. Amilcare Anguisciola sent Sofonisba and her sister Elena to study painting and live with the family of Bernadino Campi in 1546. A contemporary source wrote that Amilcare was hoping "through the nobility and worth of his daughters to render noble and highly esteemed in this city, the profession of painting". This seems a curious and charitable reason and it has been suggested that another motive might have been the fact that there were in all six daughters in the family for whom to find dowries. All the daughters, however, were encouraged to learn skills, unlike their younger brother. Sofonisba, the eldest, taught three of her other sisters to paint and this tender, gently smiling portrait is believed to be of Elena, who became a nun. She was a contemporary of Michelangelo and is mentioned in Vasari's Lives which describes a vivacious painting of her sisters playing chess. Campi taught her the skills of official portraiture and the present painting seems to owe more to her instincts than his teaching. In 1559, Sofonisba was appointed painter to the court of Philip of Spain where she was paid in handsome gifts rather than in money. This was customary, as was her task of producing numerous versions of her portraits of royalty and courtiers rather than more imaginative compositions. When she was about fifty-two, the King offered to find her a husband and she asked to marry an Italian. The King found her a Sicilian who died after four years of marriage. The King recalled Sofonisba to Spain but she asked to be allowed to visit her birthplace.